Of all the careers to choose from, nurse ranked dead last on Laura Harper's list.

"I never wanted to be in nursing," she said. "I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole."

Harper was a businessperson who left a job after 20 years to raise a family. She was attending graduate school at Canisius College with a goal of earning a master's degree and becoming a counselor.

Then, as she recalls, "Life happened."

Her mother Helen fell ill and moved in with Harper and her family in Elma. She passed away last year.

"That was quite an ordeal," said Harper, who found herself instantly immersed in a world of health care, immediately responsible for her mother's care.

Harper began to think maybe she could work as a nurse. If she could care for her own mother, she could care for other people.

In May, she completed her first year of nursing school at Trocaire College, and hopes to eventually work in a hospital's intensive care unit.

Harper, 47, is one of many who changed career paths to enter the medical field. For her, a life-changing experience drove her decision to shift career gears.

Martha Kemsley, clinical associate professor and director of the Undergraduate and Child Health Graduate Programs at the State University of New York at Buffalo, estimates 25 percent of students enrolled in UB's accelerated and basic nursing programs fit this description. She estimated 400 are enrolled in the basic program and 42 in the accelerated program.

Like Harper, others who shared their experiences with Business First are Lisbeth Walls and Elizabeth Nicholl.

Walls, who lives in Fort Erie, had been enjoying retirement after a 28 years with BlueCross & Blue Shield of Western New York. She kept busy as a volunteer for the Buffalo Zoo, Zonta International, SABAH and other organizations.

"I guess I thought that there was still some gas left in the tank, that I still had more to offer," said Walls, pointing to some other potential factors that led to her decision. "Maybe having been at Blue Cross, there was some association with the medical fields, and talking to some people in the medical field led me to technology."

She also came from a medical family. Her late father Walter Walls was a surgeon, and her brother Scott a retired obstetrician/gynecologist.

Nicholl's experience includes working as a police officer in London, England, and as a job recruiter. She also worked in Dubai for the foreign and commonwealth office. She came to the U.S. in 2000 when her husband accepted a job in Michigan.

They and their two young children moved to Western New York two years ago. Today, they live in East Aurora.

While in Michigan, her aunt and father-in-law both died of cancer. "I felt useless," Nicholl said. "I'm in America and they were in the UK."

So in 2004 she ran a marathon to raise money for cancer research. She donated money to Michigan and United Kingdom-based cancer charities.

"I felt if I was going to give back so society, and it sounds cliché to say you want to give back, but I literally found it was time to do so," Nicholl said of deciding to pursue nursing. She finished her first year at the State University of New York at Buffalo this past spring.

"Nursing isn't easy," said Harper, whose plans include working in an intensive care unit. "You have to know what you're getting in to and you have to want to get in to it."

She also knew where she had been. As a customs broker with Tower Group International, she often worked late.

"I didn't want to be in a corporate environment any more," she said. "Nursing provides flexibility and (practically) a guaranteed job."

Walls, who preferred to keep her age to herself, said returning to the classroom was a little intimidating.

"You presume being out of school so many years, maybe things have changed, and maybe you'd gotten rusty with taking notes and exams," she said.

But her personal experiences, paying off a house, a car, raising a son, meant there were lots of decisions made along the way. These, she said, have served her well.

Instead of telling people she went back to school, she prefers to say she went forward to school.

"Going back," she said, "Refers to people who have left school for one reason or another before they completed their education, and are going back to finish. I thought of it as going forward to a new life, career, friendships."

Nicholl's time at UB is the first time she's attending college. "I feel this is the time for me," she said. "I enjoy it. It's a lot of work, it demands excellence. I think that's important. If you can't give that level of commitment to your school, how can you give it to your employer or patient?"

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